Accountability

Dr. Terry Stancin wins National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award

Terry Stancin, PhD, ABPP, MetroHealth’s Chief of Psychology and Director of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, has won the 2018 National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award.

She received the honor Thursday night in front of 1,500 attendees at the annual Kenneth B. Schwartz Compassionate Healthcare Dinner in Boston. Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker presented Dr. Stancin with the National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year plaque.

The prestigious award is given annually by the Schwartz Center for Compassionate Healthcare. It honors caregivers “who exemplify the characteristics of compassion, which include effective communication, emotional support, mutual trust and respect, the involvement of families in healthcare decisions and treating patients as people, not just illnesses.” Hundreds of caregivers are nominated for the award.

“Tonight, I ask you, please to help us multiply compassion,” Dr. Stancin said in her acceptance speech. “Teach it. Train it. Model it. Create programs and systems that expand it to as many people as possible.”

Compassion doesn’t run out, she told the audience. It multiplies and gets passed on and on.

“My promise to you, as the recipient of this honor, is that I will do everything in my power to keep making that happen,” she said. “And my wish tonight, more than anything else, is that each of you will join me.”

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“Tonight, I ask you, please to help us multiply compassion. Teach it. Train it. Model it. Create programs and systems that expand it to as many people as possible.”

Dr. Stancin said in her acceptance speech

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During her more than 32 years at MetroHealth, Dr. Stancin has built a legacy of compassion. In addition to the stirring clinical care she provides to young patients and their families, she has seized opportunities to increase children’s access to mental-health services, especially disadvantaged and at-risk children, who make up much of MetroHealth’s patient population.

She’s launched a nationally recognized integrated pediatric care program that teams behavioral-health professionals with pediatricians directly in pediatric offices, allowing patients and families same-day access to mental-health services even if they are coming in simply for a check-up.

She’s been instrumental in the system’s expansion of mental-health services to include Cuyahoga County’s foster kids, Cleveland’s public-school students via the School Health Program, children with autism and more. Without her efforts, many of these children would simply not have access to behavioral health care.

Dr. Stancin helped launch MetroHealth’s Kidz Pride Clinic, one of the first in the nation dedicated to the unique medical and mental-health needs of transgender and gender-questioning youth. Since it opened in 2008, the multidisciplinary clinic has served hundreds of children, many traveling to Cleveland from hours away. Dr. Stancin provides face-to-face behavioral health care to many of the kids and their families.

Dr. Stancin is also a professor at Case Western Reserve University’s School of Medicine and has earned an excellent reputation as an academic mentor to health professionals across The MetroHealth System. During her tenure as director of child and adolescent psychology and psychiatry, the system has been able to train more psychologists, social workers and psychiatric nurse practitioners through its federally funded professional training programs, more than doubling the team that’s providing compassionate behavioral health care.

“The Schwartz Center’s core mission of advancing compassionate health care is embodied by the work of Terry Stancin and our other National Compassionate Caregiver of the Year Award finalists,” said Matt Herndon, Schwartz Center CEO. “Their full-hearted commitment to patients and their families – no matter the challenge – inspires us and demonstrates the transcendent power of compassion in addressing suffering and providing care. By recognizing them, we reinforce the vital importance of compassionate care.”

About the MetroHealth System

The MetroHealth System, Cuyahoga County’s public health system, is honoring its commitment to create a healthier community by building a new hospital on its main campus in Cleveland. The building, and the 25 acres of green space around it, are catalyzing the revitalization of MetroHealth’s West Side neighborhood.

MetroHealth will break ground on the new hospital in late 2018, using nearly $1 billion it borrowed on its own credit after dramatically improving its finances. In the past five years, MetroHealth’s operating revenue has increased by 44.5 percent and its number of employees by 21 percent. Today, its staff of 7,700 provides care at MetroHealth’s four hospitals, four emergency departments and more than 20 health centers and 40 additional sites throughout Cuyahoga County. In the past year, MetroHealth has served 300,000 patients at more than 1.4 million visits in its hospitals and health centers, 75 percent of whom are uninsured or covered by Medicare or Medicaid.

The health system is home to Cuyahoga County’s most experienced Level I Adult Trauma Center, verified since 1992, and the only adult and pediatric burn center in the state of Ohio.

As an academic medical center, MetroHealth is committed to teaching and research. Each active staff physician holds a faculty appointment at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and its main campus hospital houses a Cleveland Metropolitan School District high school of science and health.